Real-time Sound Generation of Spark Discharge

A technology for automatically creating and adding the sound to interactive CG animations of spark discharges in real time has been developed. In the procedure proposed in this paper, the user inputs the electric charge distribution, boundary conditions and other parameters affecting the initiation of electric discharges in virtual space. The animation of the discharge is then created by generating the shape of the discharge pattern and rendering it, and the sound synchronized with the animation is automatically generated in real time. The noises from spark discharges are shock waves, which exhibit complicated behavior; but, in this study, an empirical shape for a shock wave is employed to efficiently generate the acoustic waveform. Effective procedures for expressing lightning discharges and continuous discharges are also proposed.